


Maraschino Cherries

by LadySlytherin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-01
Updated: 2012-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 10:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySlytherin/pseuds/LadySlytherin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a challenge on a page I admin on FB; the words were "vanilla", "cover", and "rough", the characters were Draco, Blaise, and Theodore, the genre was comedy/romance, and the word-limit was a maximum of 3,000 words. This was the result; a lovely Draco/Astoria one-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maraschino Cherries

Draco adored sweets, as anyone who’d ever seen one of his care packages from home knew very well. He loved fudge and adored cakes and cookies and could scarf pudding down like boys twice his size. But his absolute favorite thing to eat was vanilla ice cream. Not just any vanilla ice cream, though - he liked a huge vanilla sundae. More than anything else, in fact. Which was why, two weeks after the final battle, Draco Malfoy was sitting outside the newly-reopened Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor with his two best friends, Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott. In front of him was a huge dish of the richest, sweetest, creamiest vanilla ice cream, which Draco had covered with hot fudge and whipped cream and crushed nuts and a single, perfect green mint maraschino cherry.

His friends were teasing him about it. “How can you even stand to eat that?” Blaise asked. He had a small dish of cherry flavored Italian ice that he was delicately eating. “I can’t believe you don’t weigh two hundred pounds, Dray!”

Theodore rolled his eyes as Draco licked nuts and whipped cream and ice cream off his spoon with a soft moan. “You need to be alone with your desert?” The other blonde asked, grinning.

“Bite me.” Draco replied as he licked hot fudge and more ice cream off his spoon with a pleased whimper of delight. After he swallowed, he purred at his friend. “You’re just jealous, Theo.”

Theodore made a face. “Yeah, no. Not really, Dray. Sorry to disappoint.” He chuckled as Draco stuck out his tongue before swallowing another mouthful of his sundae. “I’m thinking about asking Tracey Davis out on a date…what do you think?”

“I think she’s smarter than most of the girls in our house.” Blaise pointed out. “Better-looking too, with that pretty auburn hair. Actually,” He grinned at their treat-less friend who had an aversion to all things cold. “I think Tracey’s out of your league. Maybe you’d be better off with Millicent…”

Draco chuckled around his ice cream. “Yeah, right. Poor Theo would be crushed by Millicent – possibly literally – if they went out! She weighs at least double what he does.” He nudged Theodore with his foot under the table. “Better off sticking with Tracey, mate. She’s pretty enough, but not so pretty you’ll need to worry about someone trying to steal her away.”

“Yeah, unlike Daphne.” Blaise said, looking bitter. “I can’t believe that little tart dumped me for some stupid Quidditch player!”

“Tough break, mate.” Theo commiserated, while Draco offered a sympathetic look around another spoonful of ice cream.

After swallowing, Draco said. “It’s rough, dating. I mean, how are you supposed to trust a girl?” He sighed mournfully, licking his spoon thoughtfully. “I mean, Blaise here is one of the most beautiful people in the world – and everyone knows he’s going to stay beautiful because his mum is still gorgeous, after all – and he can’t keep a girl. Where’s the hope for the rest of us, then?”

Blaise kicked Draco hard under the table, earning him a nasty look from his friend. “Shut up, Dray. You know as well as the rest of us that you’re the most gorgeous guy our age.” When Draco preened slightly, he added. “Provided, of course, that all those sweets don’t catch up with you and turn you into a hideous blob.”

They all laughed – Draco didn’t have an ounce of fat on his slim, toned body and everyone knew it – and the conversation turned back to Theodore possibly asking out Tracey and where he might take her. Just as Draco was contemplating eating the cherry from his sundae – he liked saving it for as long as he could manage to resist it’s tempting deliciousness for – a little gasp caught his attention. Stopped just behind him was a petite brunette girl of about 15 or 16 years of age. Her hair was piled on top of her head in an elegant pile of ringlet curls and she was wearing a strapless dress in shimmering sapphire blue that stopped just short of her knees and strappy little blue sandals. She had a pretty heart-shaped face with wide golden-brown eyes and full, petal-pink lips. She was slender and delicately built and she looked strangely familiar to Draco, though he couldn’t quite figure out why.

She smiled at their group. “Hello!” Her voice was soft and sweet, her accent clipped and cultured. “I’m Astoria. Astoria Greengrass. I’m a Slytherin, like you. Though I’ve only just finished my fifth year, of course, so I’m a bit younger.”

Draco watched her cheeks turn pink and smiled charmingly at her. “Astoria. It’s lovely to meet you, of course. Would you care to join us?”

She looked torn and kept glancing up the street. “Oh, well…I’d love to, really. It’s just…” She glanced up the street again and sighed, looking miserable. “My sister, Daphne, is dragging me along on a double date of some sort and while the guy sounds nice enough I don’t really know him and Daphne’s quite mean to me a lot of the time and her boyfriend is a dreadful bore and…” She stopped, blushing quite a deep shade of red. “And now I’m babbling. I’m sorry.”

Blaise grinned at her. “So ditch them and stay here with us. “ He winked at her and added. “You can tell us all about what a dreadful bore your sister’s boyfriend is…”

She sighed again, looking miserable once more. “I really would find that more enjoyable, since she’s dragging me out to some fancy French restaurant and I can’t stand French haute cuisine and I’ve a complete weakness for sweets, but…”

She shook her head. “No, I really should go.” She smiled sweetly at Draco again and added. “But before I do, might I steal a bite of your sundae?”

Draco, who was normally quite stingy with his sweets, found this girl oddly charming and – scooping up a spoonful of his sundae – held it up for her to take a bite. “Here; it’s quite good.”

Astoria contemplated the spoon he held up and then smiled again. “Thanks, but…” She reached around him and took his mint cherry, popping it into her mouth – stem and all – with a blissful little sigh. After a long, silent moment during which Draco merely stared at her in stunned disbelief, she pulled out the stem, tied into a perfect knot. “I have a weakness for maraschino cherries.” She said with a little grin and a soft, breathless laugh as she set the knotted stem down on the table beside Draco’s ice cream dish. “I especially love the mint ones. Thanks so much! It was lovely meeting you all. Bye!”

Once she’d walked away, Draco picked up the knotted stem that was all that remained of the cherry he’d wanted so very badly to eat. He stared at it for a long moment while his friends waited for the inevitable explosion. Instead of screaming and ranting and raving, however, Draco said 5 simple words in a soft, disbelieving voice. “I think I’m in love.”

His friends hadn’t laughed so hard in years.


End file.
